The text is reproduced from the edition: Ancient Patericon, set out in chapters. 3rd ed. Moscow, Izdanie Athoskogo Russkogo Panteleimonova monastyra Publ., 1899. 428 p. (In Russian)

Orthodoxy, Church Fathers, patrology, prayers, exhortations, Christ, salvation ru Vladimir Schneider http://www.ccel.org/contrib/ru/xml/index.html FB Editor v2.0, MS Word, XML Spy February 2003 http://www.krotov.org/acts/04/0399prc1.html; http://www.ccel.org/contrib/ru/xml/pateric.zip 08731EA9-9F61-425E-9F0C-AF0E58167D03 2.0 Ancient Patericon Kiev-Pechersk Dormition Lavra 2008

 ANCIENT PATERIK

To the readers

The ways of the righteous, that is, their life and teaching, according to the word of the Most Wise One (Proverbs 4:18), shine like light: they precede us and enlighten the path to salvation. This should be said especially about the saints of the New Testament Church, who received grace for grace from the fullness of Christ (John 1:16). Though the Christian ascetics hid themselves from the world, like the Old Testament, wandering in the wilderness, and in the mountains, and in caves, and in the abysses of the earth (Heb. 11:38): but as the light of the world, as a majestic city set on the mountain of God, they could not hide themselves from the world, much less from believers (Matt. 5:14). The light of their podvigs and teachings shines so brightly, according to the words of the Saviour, before all men, that, seeing their good deeds, we involuntarily glorify the Heavenly Father, revere His saints, and delight in Him according to the inner man (Rom. 7:22).

Selected features from the life of Christian ascetics, especially their wise sayings leading to life and piety (2 Peter 1:3), are briefly and intelligibly presented in the so-called Patericons or the stories and sayings of the Fathers. These stories and sayings are rightly called pearls and beads of great value from the spiritual treasury of the God-bearing Fathers. Here it is not an outside witness who narrates, nor does the theologizing mind give instructions, but men who have spent their entire lives according to God, who have been purified and enlightened by their unceasing labors, prayer, fasting, and every exhaustion — men who have attained angelic life and contemplation, speak about themselves and teach from their long-term experience and enlightenment from above.

The reading of these profound, but also conveniently understandable stories and instructions of the fathers, to the one who opens his heart to God and wants to learn in His law, gives indescribable pleasure and benefit. The honeycomb of the honeycomb is a good word: but their sweetness is the healing of the soul (Proverbs 16:24). The words of the wise are like oxen and nails thrust into the rod of the driver (Ecclesiastes 12:11): thus they wound and induce to virtue the laziest and coarsest man. How edifying the reading of ascetic sayings is for everyone, the ascetics themselves show.

"Abba Ammon," says one Patericon, "once asked the elder Pimen: if it is necessary to speak with a neighbor, then what do you think, is it better to talk to him about the Holy Scriptures, or is it better to talk about the sayings and thoughts of the elders? The elder replied to him, if it is impossible to be silent, then it is better to talk about the sayings of the elders than about the Holy Scriptures. Scripture. For to speak of the Holy Scriptures. There is not a little danger in the Scriptures."

Blessed John Moschos tells how once a reading from the Patericon of "Paradise" about the non-acquisitiveness of an elder, which led robbers to repentance, prompted another elder to make the same experiment of patience and non-acquisitiveness. This elder, adds John Moschos, was especially fond of recalling the sayings of the Holy Fathers, and they were always in his mouth and in his heart, from which he acquired the greatest fruit of virtue.

Patristic stories and sayings, the examples of the Fathers themselves and those around them, reveal to us the hidden depth of our nature in its various states: in the natural state – its corruption, infirmities, vices, in the state of grace – its renewal, strength and spiritual height, to which the believer attains by the power of Christ; discover various and surest ways of healing and spiritual perfection of a person.

Finally, let us note: an attentive reader, comparing the lives of the ancient holy ascetics with the life of our time, involuntarily sees and feels to what extent in the spiritual life we have lagged behind the life of the Christians of ancient times. This was foreseen by the holy ascetics, and in the gradual decline of faith and virtue they indicated the gradual approach of the terrible day of the Lord. "The holy fathers of the skete also prophesied about the last generation, saying: What have we done? To this answered one of them, Abba of great life, named Sirion: "We have kept the commandments of God." He was asked: what will the people who will live after us do? The abba answered: they will do half of our work. He was asked again: "And those who will live after them, what will they do?" They won't do anything at all. Temptations will come upon them, and those who will prove good at that time will be greater than us and our fathers."

Such a warning of the Holy Fathers, in agreement with the words of the Saviour (Matthew 24:7-13, 21-26, 37-39, etc.), clearly exposes the deception of the wise men of our age, who dream of the moral superiority of the society they lead. Where the cross of Christ is abolished (1 Corinthians 1:17), this cannot be. For without Me ye can do nothing (John 15:5).

We offer our readers the Patericon, translated from the Greek from the Synoidal manuscript No 452 (according to Mattei's catalogue between the typographical in quarto No XLIII), on parchment, 11th-12th centuries, on 182 leaves. The patericon who occupies this entire manuscript was already known to Patriarch Photius of Constantinople, who described it in his Library chapter by chapter (cod. 198). The original Greek text of this Patericon has not been published, and is not even known from manuscripts. Only its Latin translation is known, made as early as the sixth century by Pelagius and John, deacons of Rome; it has been edited by Rosveida (De vita et verbis Seniorum, Antwerpiae, 1628), and more recently by Menem (Patrologiae cursus, Paris. 1849. T. LXXIII. p. 855 et sq.).